It feels too hard

It's been 6 or more weeks since my father died.  It's not gotten easier.  In someways, I think it feels harder.

I'm humbled.  There is so much I didn't know.  So much I wish I could change.  No one can go back.  So we can only go forward.  

I've not understood the grief with a person whom you loved so much and for so long.  I feel like an unfeeling clod when I think of my parents when they lost there own parents -- my grandparents.  And yet I believe it had to impact them in a similar way.  On my dad's desk, as I started to look for things to prepare for his funeral -- one of the things I found was the funeral book from his father.  I was not quite 5 when my Grandpa Stewart died.  45 years ago.  And the guest book from his funeral was on my dad's desk.  I'd never seen it before.  Frankly, I barely remember my Grandpa Stewart.  Maybe one memory that I can actually count as mine...and it's a brief flash of him sitting in his recliner as I came into their house on Hawthorne.  

A.O. and Lillian Stewart

There was a beautiful photo of my grandpa and grandma that my dad had kept on his desk in more recent years.  Maybe that was his way of honoring and remembering and feeling close again.  I guess I don't know because I never asked.  But I know it must have been special.